Unearthing the Secrets Deep Within

[Ataraxis]

Closed to Logan.
The letter had come in the night, slipping from the mail flap in her apartment door. When she came to see who had delivered it, Lillian only saw the same old corridor with browning wallpapers and flickering gas-lamps, vacant of life. Perplexed, she closed the door behind her, tearing open the unsigned envelope to sate her curiosity. An immaterial breeze swept through the room, and it left an eldritch flavor in the air that was as good as any signature. It was a psychic imprint, one she recognized as belonging to the elusive Logan McCloud.

“Well, I’m curious to know what you’ve been doing since our ordeal in Kachuk,” she said in a singsong voice while unfolding the paper. She remembered how they had been brought together by a seemingly benign pick-up job at the mines that turned into an out-and-out fiasco. It was a chaotic series of hostages and prisoners, ransoms and betrayal, with a dragon thrown into the pot for good measure: not exactly a day in her life she remembered fondly.

Still, she had made new friends that day, and Logan was among those. They had parted on good terms, and he told her he might need her help. Of course, he had assured her that were she in similar need of aid, he would do his best to swoop in and save the day, an activity he seemed to enjoy very much. From a quick perusal of this letter, she realized this was the favor he had spoken of, back then. The notion, of course, made the girl extremely giddy: he needed her particular skill set for a delicate matter… research in a library hidden deep inside the womb of Raiaera.

“And of course, you found the coordinates. Well done!”

A sense of mild danger radiated from the missive. Reflexively, Lillian threw the letter up in the air and watched as it floated there, buffeted by a subtle wave of sorcery. Within moments, it burst into flames, a wave of smoldering red tearing through the paper until there was nothing left – not even ashes. Thankfully, she had memorized the contents of the letter verbatim, something he knew very well she would do. “Secretive as ever, aren’t you?”

There was still time before the date of the meeting. It would not take much more than a week at sea to travel from Radasanth to Anebrilith, and another few days on land to reach their rendez-vous point. Though she was not fond of the country since the events of its invasion, there was not much she could do about it now. Thankfully, the lure of a secret bibliotheca was more than enough compensation.

Knowing Logan, however, Lillian could easily guess that he was already on the premises, helping his men work through whatever earth or rubble or ancient arcane ward that was likely to have barred entry into this library.

With a grin, Lillian decided she would drop by earlier than scheduled. After all, she knew a shortcut.

[Logan]

As he wrote the letter, the psion thought back to his first meeting with Lilian. He had forced himself to remain focused on their task at the time, and not the pleasant woman -- no, I should say girl -- whom accompanied him. It was no easy task.

Lilian was a beautiful girl who was highly gifted in arts Logan could only dream of, but even still, through the course of their endeavor she had become more akin to a niece than an object of affection. Perhaps an object of lust, but affection was too strong a word for his thoughts of her.

It was the connection with the academic that had been brought to mind when he'd first caught wind of the potential treasures hidden within the ruins of a mostly secret Library in Raiaera, or what remained of it. There wasn't a single person he'd ever run across with her particular set of skills, and she did owe him.

Well, Logan never considered it a matter of her owing him anything. After all, without her, the excavations in the mines deep within Kachuk would've been an even bigger disaster than they had turned out to be. The psion could only hope the coordinates he'd worked up based on the information he had gathered were correct, and not leading him into some sort of trap.

Luckily, he'd taken the very thing into account, and had sent ahead a scout group. When they returned with reports of certain books being sold by thieves and bandits no more than fifty miles from the coordinates he knew he was onto something. Being the leader of The Family, Logan sent out a group of excavators and explorers to begin digging through the rubble to see what they might find. He planned to join them within a day, but wanted to ensure he couriered the letter to Lilian first.

Once he'd dropped the letter off with The Family's most trusted courier, the psion made the lengthy journey from Corone to Raiaera in a matter of ten days. He was a day behind schedule, but that was forgivable.

Arriving at the dig site, Logan was briefed by the leader of the excavations. Walter Von Waufelmieser had been one of the psion's most trusted confidants within The Family. The young man had high aspirations and wanted nothing more than to head Vice when Logan was ready and willing to step down. If there was anyone at the time fit for the role it was most assuredly Walt.

Word spread quickly that the great Logan McCloud had made the journey himself to join the crew, and cheers and songs broke out. He wasn't exactly worshiped, but the psion was adored by those within The Family. Walt couldn't help but laugh at it all.

"Logan, it's good to see you, but damn man, do you gotta bring your priests with you, too?"

The look the psion gave his trusted confidant was one of half-scorn and half-humor.

"You just wish they praised you, too."

The two joined one another in a good laugh at each others expense, and then made their way to the tent city that had been erected for the project. Walt pointed out the various locales that had been created, including the leisure tent where he assured Logan would be spending the majority of his time. The two laughed once more.

Walt showed the psion to his personal tent, a simple modest sleeping quarters with a desk for working when necessary. The journey had worn him out so much, that as soon he laid upon the bed for a short rest he was out asleep. Completely oblivious to who was arriving in the camp as he did.

[Ataraxis]

The ground sank a few miles away from the dig site, the structural collapse seemingly caused by the burrowing of one of the region’s underground fauna. Only, the crater continued to broaden and deepen, until the very earth gave way and it became an unfathomable sinkhole. Darkness swirled within as an ominous vortex, harbinger of the bizarre and of something soon to come. Within the cauldron of ink and shadows, wisps and arcs of energy brewed like sheet lightning, rising from the spatial disturbance like the violet tendrils of a giant passion flower.

Specks of brilliant dust came off these tendrils like pollen, congregating into a mass of light that slowly took on the features of a human silhouette. The radiance peeled from the top, progressively revealing the crest of silky black hair, chilling blue eyes, a dainty little nose, bowed lips that breathed of frailty… until the librarian was all there, from her cloak of midnight blue and hefty knapsack to her traveling boots and assortment of bladed weaponry she kept latched and sheathed to the rope belt at her waist.

The sinkhole coughed up motes of dirt and dust at once, filling up with peaty soil and solid bedrock as if the wheel of time had been inverted. Soon, nothing remained of the strange burrow, save perhaps for a few rippling echoes of residual energy from what had been an artificial tear in the fabric of space. Lillian had watched the process with vivid eyes and a fascinated smile, for the process had been very novel to the girl. It had not been that long since she had learned to travel between continents in a matter of blinks, and her opportunities for undertaking such voyages were becoming fewer and farther between.

Yet, here she was: her first trip out of her Radasanthian apartment in months, and she had chosen Raiaera as destination, of all places. Lillian had never traveled to the exact coordinates Logan had given her, but she knew from them that the location sat not too far from the ruins of Valinatal, where she had studied the aftermath of the cataclysm and of the Necromancer’s taint at length. It would require her only a few hours of leisure walk to reach the dig site, she estimated, and without further ado the girl began her slow and solitary march.

A dark veil fell over the skies, thickening as pinpricks of light came to life in its folds. It was not long after the fall of night that Lillian finally did reach the excavation site, albeit a bit winded – long promenades across the rolling elvish countryside hardly was her favorite way to pass time. She noticed the swarm of tents in the distance, rising from the low grass and muddy earth like mushrooms after the rain. Various braziers spotted the encampment, the flames providing light for the members of Logan’s family to labor and toil as if the sun’s rays still hammered hotly upon their heads.

The first to notice her approach was young man with a stern face that belied his age. He seemed to carry himself with well-placed pride and confidence, and she believed him to be an interim leader of sorts: an ambitious lieutenant, aspiring to one day take on the mantle of his most honored general. He marched toward her with gravity and suspicion, and Lillian thought it safest to advance at a slower, non-threatening pace.

“No one else is scheduled to arrive here today,” the man said without emotion, eyes unblinking. “State your name and business.”

Lillian smiled with a slight tilt of her head, answering him in earnest. “Lillian Sesthal, librarian. Mister Logan sent for me by courier.”

“What? Impossible,” the man said with a scoff, the suspicion in his eyes rising. “Our messenger should have made it to Radasanth only earlier today. He’s not even back yet!”

“I took a shortcut,” the girl answered with genuine innocence, barely realizing that the stern man had taken that as a jab. “I wanted to surprise him by dropping in a bit earlier,” she continued, her eyes sinking slightly. The librarian seemed almost crestfallen. “Is that a problem?”

The young man looked just about to curse, but he stayed his tongue. Her arrival had stirred up the other members of the Family, who had stopped their work for a moment to see what the hubbub was all about. Crates stopped moving toward where they needed to be, excavators that should be resting were looking out the flaps of their tents, engineers no longer perused their charts and plans of the local topography… this girl was a plague to all logistics.

Sensing that the man might have been planning to oust the girl by force, one of the members had scurried away from the area, heading toward their leader’s tent to inform him of the situation: if anything, he would know what to make of these strange circumstances.
And just as he thought, the stern lieutenant had begun scolding and spouting at the girl, none of his words bearing any semblance of kindness or restraint. Gulping, he quickened his pace until he saw the lone-standing pavilion where Logan had made his lodging. Pulling the flap open, he shouted as politely as he could.

“Sir! A young lass just entered camp, and Walter is chewing her ear out! She claims to be Lillian Sesthal!”